
Book "H'V Lg. 



c 



DESULTORY NOTES AND REMINISGENSES 



OF THE 



CITY OF ROCHESTER: 



ITS EAKLY HISTORY, 

REMARKABLE MEN AND EVENTS, 

STRANGE REVELATIONS 

OF THE 

MURDERS, MYSTERIES AND MISERIES, 
CASUALTIES, CURIOSITIES x\ND PROGRESS 

OF THIS 

YOUNG AND GROWING CITY, FOR THE LAST 50 YEARS. 



BY A:E OCTOGEI^AEIANr. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
18G8. 






"0 * O 7_ 



1 i" 



EEMlIlSJ^ISCElSrCES, 



A few months since, " Pioneer," in the daily Union & Adver- 
tiser, gave his remembrances of early times, relating mostly to Ex- 
change street and its surroundings, its history and personalities, 
with remarkable spirit, truth and distinctness ; which were highly 
relished and approved. He not having followed up a subject for 
which he was so well qualified, has induced me at an humble dis- 
tance, to tax my memory for some notable events and incidents 
relating to Buffalo street, State street and their cotemporaries, 
many of which were never written, and others only in the public 
prints, the copies of which through the change of hands, careless- 
ness, or fire, are lost. '' O'Reilly's Sketches" are very reliable as 
an elaborate and general history ; but they do not descend into 
particulars — into the lower stratum — the muddle and minutoc of 
the mysteries and miseries of a new. struggling and slightly governed, 
roving population. 

These fugitive notes are the result of a month's long evenings 
of winter, entirely from memory and consultations with three or 
four old Fofjies like the writer, without reference to any work ex- 
cept an old directory of 1827 for dates, and it is now put in type 
for gratuitous distribution, to keep intact a few notorieties from 
fading entirely from the memories of those that are now living and 
perhaps those that shall come after the present generation. 

That part of the city on the west side of the River, was pur- 
chased of I'hclps and Gorham. owners of near half of western New 
York, about 1791. by seven purchaser.*^. P. & G. had given in 1789 
a mill lot of 100 acres to Indian Allen, on condition he should 
build a mill for the convenience of new settlers. Allen was a vil- 
lainous scamp, a cold blooded murderer and Tory in the revolution- 
ary war, and led many Indian massacres. 

This lot afterwards fell into the possession of the English Pult- 
ney estate, and in 1802 was purchased by Rochester, Fitziiugh 



aud Carkoj.l, and iu 1812, was laid out in village lots, and named 
Rochester Yille, which was afterward changed by the Legisla- 
ture to its present name. This was the first movement to form a 
village, of slow growth at first, which in a little less than 60 years, 
has grown into a city of 60,000 souls, and which is now blessed 
with a wise aud careful legislative municipality, that are so tender 
of their dear constituents' interests, that they never suffer the tax- 
ation to exceed 3 or 5 per cent. 

" Bless the Lord I" as Bioss used to say, for all our mercies. 

It is supposed that not a single individual that came to this city 
of adult age, is known to be now alive that resided here in 1812, 
except Mr. A. Reynolds, who came in May of that year. Mr. 
Hamlet Serantom, 8r., and family, of whom Edwin. Henry and 
Hamlet his sons are now citizens, was an earlier settler than Mr. 
R. Mr. S. first located on the Eagle lot. Mr. Ive^ynolds paid for 
his two lots, on which now stands his Arcade building, ^55 for one 
and S75 for the other, and was to have the now Elwood corner for 
$200 ; but by some smart management he lost it. 

There are still several persons who settled here as early as 1815 
and 1816. 

A bridge across the River was finished this year, 1812. 

Matthew a'ad Francis Brown bought lots — 48 and 49 — and laid 
them out in village lots and called them Frankfort, its improve- 
ments consisted of two log huts, and Charles Harford's Grist and 
Saw Mill, which was located somewhere where Jones' Foundry 
now stands, though it was gone before I ever saw it, but I remem- 
ber a large layer of slabs at the foot of the precipice in the rear of 
this location, for iu 1831, the day before the Fourth of July, a boy 
in reaching for some berries fell over and we had to run a half 
mile to reach him ; apparently dead, his fallen the slabs had so flat- 
tened him, that all his clothes were burst open ; he revived, and 
the next day he was firing crackers with the boys. That boy. now 
a man, need never be afraid of Railroad collisions or jumping Sam 
Patch. The distance he fell was measured next day and was 79 
feet. 

In 1813, the State opened the Ridge road to Lewistou. About 
this time a Post Ofiice was established and our venerable citizen 
Abelard Reynolds, appointed P. M. The first quarterly income 
was S3. 42, now as many thousands. 

In 1814, Sir James L. Yeo, with the British fleet, came into the 
mouth of the River, and threatened to come up and burn the bridge 
aud plunder the log cabins ; all the women and children took to 
the woods, and the men went along to show them the way. 

1815. The first religious society was organized this year, and 
the Rev. Comfort Williams, the first clergyman settled in the 
village, over the Presbyterian society which then consisted of 16 
members. The first merchants were Ira West and Silas 0. 
Smith, who opened small stores. The census gave the village 331 
inhabitants. 



1810. Danby & Sheldon this year established a weekly news- 
paper, called the Gci::ette, afterwards published by Derrick and 
Levi Sibley, and after by our well known citizen Edwin Scrantom 
as the Monroe Rejnibb'caJi, now the Union Wealdy. In 1817, the 
Buffalo street road was laid out to Batavia. and the first Steamboat 
came into the Genesee River, and the price of wheat rose up to $2.25 
per bushel, causing great losses to the millers. 

In 1818, the celebrated Carthage Bridge was comment;ed, 
with a single arch 200 feet above the water, the chord of which 
was 352 feet and the entire length over 700 feet, which stood one 
year and one day and fell to " everlasting smash." The only per- 
son who saw it fall is still alive, Russel Green, then a school boy, 
now in Indiana. 

The Royal Arch Chapter was installed this year. In 1820, 
the County of Monroe was set off. The price of flour this year 
ran down to 82.25 a barrel, and our popular miller CiiAS. J. Hill, 
bought wheat at 2s. 9d. per bushel, and paid in " stay tape and 
buckram." 

The First Election for five Trustees was held in 1817, when 
Francis Brown, Daniel Mack, Wm. Cobb, Evcrard Peck and Jehiel 
Barnard for trustees, and Hastings R. Bender, Clerk, and F. F. 
Backus, Treasurer — now all deceased. Of the 16 officers of the 
Fire Department, only two are now alive, Col. Aaron Newton and 
Stephen Charles. 

Id 1821, The Old Canal Aqueduct was commenced, and in 
October, the 22d, the first boat left for Little Falls laden with flour. 
Mills, stores and dwellings went up as if by magic, and the in- 
cipient city of log cabins disappeared with astonishing rapidity. 
The census of 1825 gave a population of 4275. The aboriginal 
and nomadic wanderers to the far west, turned their faces for 
Rochester, which brought a strong flood of the eastern " better- 
THEMSELVEs" population, wlio on starting took an everlasting leave 
of their friends, made their wills, laid in a stock of quack medi- 
cines " good for the ager and janders," and left for that far off 
land, where it was said their crops would be " bull frogs" knee 
deep and " rattle snakes" enough to fence them. 

There were from 3 to 400 buildings erected yearly ; its rapid 
growth created a furore of emigration and brought many singular 
and eccentric geniuses that our present staid, bustling, business 
population have no conception of. Of the old stock of citizens of 
this class I only remember John O'Donohue, the witty and eccen- 
tric auctioneer ; Gil. Everingham the wholesale merchant, who, on 
his failure owed 2,200 dollars for cocktails to his landlord, and 22,- 
000 to his creditors ; Wm. C. Bloss, an unappreciated genius, even 
when devoid of religious fanaticism ; Gardner McCracken, Col. 
Herman Bissell, Sam Hatt, Joseph Russel, machine poet, and crier 
to the courts; Sam Drake the sportsman, who kills with his tongue 
as well as with his double barrels ; Davis C West, Josiah Sheldou, 
Benjamin 11. Brown, all of whom were gifted with more or less 
eccentricities — now but one of them alive. 



Of the adult early Pioneers now living, 
in society the following : 



Abelard Reynolds, 
Dr. Elwood, 
Preston Smith, 
Gen. John Williams, 
Isaac Hills, 
John H. Thomp.son. 
Gen. A. W. Riley, 
Col. Aaron Newton, 
Wm. Brewster, 
Chas. J. Hill. 



N. B. Merrick, 
Jeremiah Cutler, 
John Haywood, 
Richard Gorsline, 
Frederick 8tarr, 
James Buchan, 
Hiram Blanchard, 
Thos. H. Rochester. 
N. T. Rochester, 
H. E. Rochester, 



Aristarchus ChampiouEbenezer Ely, 
Judge Gardiner, Nehemiah Osborn, 



Edwin Scrantom, 
W. J. McCracken, 
Ebenezer Watts, 
Levi A. Ward, 
Chas. W. Dundas, 
William Pitkin, 



Darius Perrin, 
Samuel P. Gould, 
George Gould, 
B. M. Baker, 
Thurlow Weed, 



I only see still moving 



Derrick Sibley, 
H. N. Curtis, 
Doct. Jonah Brown, 
Joseph Medbery, 
Aaron Erickson, 
Samuel L. Selden, 
Samuel Ih-ake, 
David Moody, 
Thos. J Patterson, 
Lewis Selye. .^ 
E. B. Wh«4w,4 ^\. 
Ezra M. Parsons, 
John Robinson, 
Benj. Butler, 
Fisher Bui lard, 
Orrin Harris. 
Ambrose Cram. 



Here are about fifty names out of over 4,000 inhabitants that 
resided here from about 1814 to 1820 or '22, all of some notoriety 
and well known to all business men of that day. There are un- 
doubtedly others that my memory does not recall. 

I have before me, furnished by a friend, a list of over (300 names^ 
all of some note, of those who have died and passed away within 
the last 40 or 45 years, over the Lethean river of oblivion and 
forgetfulness, to be known no more — a nine day's talk — may be not 
so much — and our memories " vanish into air, thin air." It is a 
fearful show of the vanities and penalties of mortal life, and if 
properly realized is a striking warning and memento to us all, be- 
fore " shuffling off this mortal coil," to show us " what shadows 
we are and what shadows we pursue," almost regardless of the 
great final result. 

On looking over this fearful and lamentable list, I note many dis- 
tinguished and estimable citizens, with most of whom I had the 
pleasure to be acquainted. Subjoined are the names of the rev- 
erend Clergy, Attorneys and Physicians, that resided here in the 
infancy of this city, and others of later date, well known to the 
present generation : 



Wm. Miller, 
Comfort Williams, 
Oliver Comstock, 
Chas. G. Lee, 



CLERGYMEN. 

Joseph Penny, 
F. H. Cumming, 
Calvin Pease, 
John T. Coit, 
Chester Dewey, 



Elon Galusha, 
Kingman Nott, 
James Nichols, 
R. S. Crampton. 



J. G. Vought, 
Solomon Day, 
John D. Henry, 
Champion Landou, 
A. G. Smith, 
James M. Smith, 
O. E. Gibbs, 
David McCrackeu, 
Anson Coleman, 
E. S. Marsh, 
Richard Dibble, 



John Mastic, 
Roswell Babbit. 
W. C. VanNess, 
Joseph Spencer, 
A. S. Alexander, 
Samuel B. Chase, 
Jesse Dane, 
D. K. Carter, 
Simeon Ford, 
T. F. Talbot, 
Horace Gay, 
Vincent Matthews 



PHYSICIANS. 

James Webster, 
Samuel Hamilton, 
William Bell, 
A. P. Biegler, 
Lewis Durand, 
Matthew Brown, 
Levi Ward, 
F. F. Backus, 
T. Scott Avery, 
Azel Ensworth, 
L. D. Fleming, 

ATTORNEYS. 



Frederic Whittlesey, Wm. S. Bishop, 



G. W. Lewis, 
Moses Long, 
M. M. Rodgers, 
Simon Hunt, 
E. P. Langworthy, 
U. S. 
W. W. Reid, 
Thomas Bradley, 
Alexander Kelsey, 
M. M. Matthews. 



Timothy Child, 
Charles M. Lee, 
G. H. Chapin, 
John R. Dixon, 
Hiram C. Smith, 
Selah Matthews, 
Ebenezer Griffin, 
Calvin Huson, 

D. D. Barnard, 

E. A. Hopkins, 



Hester L. Stephens, 
M. F. Delano, 
Jarvis M. Hatch, 
Eliphalet Trimmer, 
Henry Hunter, 
Anson House, 
Moses Chapin, 
John C. Nash, 
Fletcher M. Haight, 
Alba Lathrop. 



L R. Elwood, 

Each one of all the foregoing individuals has a history, which 
if written the world would hardly contain the books. 

I have sometimes wondered what gave the name of BuiFalo to our 
thriving sister city, and I have been told it was adopted from the 
Indian name of the creek that enters the lake at that point. Now 
what should give that name to the creek unless the Buffalo ranged 
that region in olden times. It has generally been held that that 
animal never crossed the Mississippi River, but it must be a mis- 
take, and there is no doubt but that they once ranged freely over 
the Prairie land of Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, and even the wild 
forests of Western New York. Probably the organization of the 
powerful Five Nations and the consolidation of their numerous 
bands in the western wilds disper.'^ed and drove them off. 

Father LeMoine, a Jesuit Missionary to the Onondaga and Illi- 
nois Indians in 1053, on his passing the rapids of the St. Lawrence, 
says in his diary, " on the other side of the rapids I perceived a 
drove of wild cows, which were passing at their ease in great state. 
Five or six hundred are often seen in these regions in one drove." 
He then made his way up the Oswego River to the chief town of 
the Onondagas. " We arrived at a small lake and were led to a 
spring that they dare not drink, saying there was a demon in it 
which made it poison ; having tasted it, I found it a fountain of 



salt water, and iu tact, we made salt from it as natural as that from 
the sea, of Avhicli we carried a sample to Quebec." 

On his return in a storm his canoes were driven on an Island, I 
should think by his vague description of location, somewhere be- 
tween what is now Sackett's Harbor and Ogdeusburg. He says, 
" 1st September, 1653, I never saw so many Deer, but we had no 
inclination to hunt them ; my man killed three as if against his will. 
On the 2d, traveling through vast prairies, we saw in diverse 
quarters immense herds of wild Bulls and Cows ; 8d and 4th, our 
game does not leave us. It seems that venison and game follow 
us everywhere, droves of twenty cows plunge into the water as if 
to meet us; some are killed by way of amusement by blows of an 
axe." Now what could these animals be but the Bison of Zoologists 
and the Buffalo of the Indians, for there was not a domesticated 
animal within five hundred miles of that region, if on the American 
continent ; therelbre it is a fair conclusion, that the Indians were 
familiar with this animal and named the creek after them. 

They were an animal beyond the ability of the natives to subdue, 
as they had no horses to follow them, nor atiy kind of fire arms, 
only rude spears and arrows. Where he found the '' vast prairies" 
is a little problematical in our heavy wooded country. 

Father LeMoine was the first white man that ever discovered or 
tasted the heaven-sent blessing, the salt springs of Onondaga, a 
precious gift that ranges side by side with oauar!?^nd railroads in 
the settlement and populating the great West. 

If our salt springs should become exhausted, which in time may 
result, what would become of the teeming millions of the western 
world, — its inhabitants would^become nonentities and the soil a chaos 
of hard clay for want of cultivation, or join the Mormons and go 
to Salt Lake. 

Well. well, what a rambling pacing pony the imagination is, 
when the ribbons are in the hands of one over 8U years old. who knows 
a little of everything and not much of any thing ; who cogitates 
and thinks, sometimes right and often wrong, but as I go in for the 
27th letter of the alphabet — the letter slide — so j'ou must take my 
crudities as they run as we take our spare-rihs, for better or for 
worse. Writing with an indelible steam pencil that never stops 
and don't know the word ^choa, except when it runs off the track. 
This exordium brings me back to Buffalo street, which was the 
goal in view many leagues, back if the rambling afflatus does not 
send me a " wool gathering" in some remote quarter. In my first 
number I proposed to give some early recollections of Buffalo street 
and its surroundings, and having traveled so many times around 
Robin Hood's barn, it is fully time to begin ; so now, venez a nos 
moutons. 

This street was probably named from the fact, that it looked 
toward that thriving city, which about these days claimed great 
notoriety, being opposite the enemy's frontier, where the greater 
part of tile war of 1812 was enacted. This street and Carrol, now 



9 

State, was a rude apology for a viaduct, for one half of the year 
it was an aqueduct of mud and water. Some idea may be realized 
by those who observed the black muck, peat and parts of trees 
thrown out in excavating last year for the great sewer in that street. 

A story was current in those days, that some one threw out a 
plank to reach a hat lying on the mud, on raising it a voice issued 
from under, " Halloo there, what are you at?" " I beg your pardon 
said the citizen, I was not aware there was a man under it." 
" Well you give up that hat, or you will find there is one, and as 
good a horse too as there is in this infernal country ;" at any rate 
in spring and fall it was a sea — a volcano of mud, — which sought 
its own level and saved a great deal of engineering and leveling. 
Buildings began to be erected and stepping stones and slabs placed 
for side-walks for convenience of locomotion. 

This country was sickly, as all new lands are, particularly at the 
mouth of the river, where two or three sets of inhabitants died 
off, and indeed the whole country was infected with agues and 
fevers, and it is said the physicians of those days helped the 
destroying angel, by the then prevailing practice of bleeding and 
calomel, which is now happily gone to the tomb of the capulets. 

A traveler was prospecting the country for a new home, when 
at the mouth of the river, he observed a man so wasted and thin, 
that but one man could look at him at a time, sunning himself 
against a house and entered into conversation with him, and asked 
about the reputation of the country as to health. " Oh said he, 
it is not bad, pretty good, take it bye and large." " But my friend, 
your appearance does not justify that opinion." "Oh said he, that 
is nothing, everybody must get acclimated you know." " How 
long does it take ?" " Oh, four or five years." " Well, how has 
it operated with you ?" " Well the first year I had the shakes, 
that was pretty tough, I shook so that T split the beams of my 
house and did some other damage. Well the next year I had the 
intermittent fever, I got through that pretty well, — a body must be- 
come hardened to the country you see, — then for about two years I 
had the bilious fever and then the lake fever, and I am now taper- 
ing off' with the mud fever ; I shall come out first rate yet." '• Well, 
my friend. I have no disposition to go through the course your col- 
lege of acclimation prescribes, so I will be going ; do you think 
there is any danger of my being infected ?" " No, I guess not 
if you have a good horse, but you must make tracks I can tell you. 

The wind is in the right quarter, let us try to get back into Buf- 
falo street again. On the north-west corner of it and State street 
Dr. Azel Ensworth built a tavern house, which was a patched piece 
of additions, though he had often fifty or sixty boarders, and was 
known as the Eagle Tavern and kept for several years by his son 
Russ, a person of some peculiarities — both deceased for many years. 
It has been rebuilt and is now Powers Ban/,-. On the opposite 
corner east was a rude stone building of rough ashlers, guiltless of 
axe, tool or hammer or any metal tool, and was the store of Hart 

9 



10 



^r Saxton It was burned and another erected of little better finish, 
Lown as Burns' Block, lately rejuvenated and beautified an^js 

nowthe Elwood property. On t>^,V^'"'^""'f rsiHs O Im^th 
nnd E^chan-e was a rude stone building owned by Silas 0-j5mith 
sTncerebt^t: an imposing structure, now Smith s Arcade. The inos 
ll^h P feature that I remember now about it was Stowell s 
Xe cockat ParroWhat was hung out of the window, making 
The most iinearthly screams and screechings to attract visitors to 
his museum On the south-east corner opposite was a large brick 
cnvrwith the most -oth and vandalish windows ever got up by 
fnTn'wewoX architect. It was occupied for many years by 
lloTt Watts & Langworthy as a Hardware and Iron Store. It 
has been since demolished and is now 3Iasomc HaU _ 

Having got the four corners established asa^o.«^ '^ "P^^^f^Z 
^ Jv^tinn^ of all sizes and fashions crept in by degrees, till most 
Tth Cund wl^s cupied for considerable space in all directions. 
'' S: ^t Mim.g I rlnember, going east from the Eagle c^i^er^ 
was a two story frame house kept for several yeaib by H. Miuai a 
Is a ta ^n and was the first two-story frame house budtm Rochester^ 
On the erection of Reynold's Arcade it was removed, and is now 
So fandtoTsophia^treet, a tenant house, filled in with brick 
and Is such entitled to the reverential notice and respect of all 

^'t^^r^lacksmith Shop stood where is now fe corner of 
Meaae i, jj^ ^trr^Pt^ The river ran then where now the 

'^Z'^' -""^ithf ow orbricl bail Ibgs beyond, stolen out of the 
tVr Po old ver ! V ochcd and c'rowded out of its egifmate 
Premises U of t^e fe.uiuinc gender, her lordly master .mpenous 
^Z. fairly, kicked ber out of bed ^et soure .mes e phaut. 

SrSf^SuTon'ro^^^btrtir^e Jlted innovations and 
obstructions with relentless fury. ^.,^ buildincrs were de- 

s4rt^^:^:arf,9£5S;;ri^r 
2.-s;if:!rt0-|p.oeeu^ 

ItiXiTdi^ruf""^^^^ 

fr^H^'Tb^pt'^Krwe B bbit^- LTn'^A Hnbbel, eoo- 
S-L";,'I;::?nn Sunth were »o--he^a|ong Ja reg.. 

The first building now standing SO.>"R ;>«'■' beyo"""e 
that I can call to mind, is a arge 7-^J' J,f "''^j^f^^lTtd a bad 
f "1" tt°nt is'strcoTd"™ e:anV7^.e<i "-^e a decayed 
beTuty un«l U mateTuiie'a respectable appearance, and ,s now 
the Exchange Hotel. , disappeared, 



11 

it knew who built it or for what purpose ; it was of two stories, 
without windows or doors, the boys called it the old Penitentiary 
and said it was haunted — that a pedlar was murdered there, 
whether old split foot flew away with it, or it was pulled down, I dis- 
reniember. 

The next notable place was the notorious Chicken Roiv, on a part 
of which grounds now stands the best built, and in the severest 
good critical taste, of any erection in this city, the Rochester 
Savinffs Bank, whose directors laid out as much money as they 
knew how. The materials will never decompose and crumble down, — 
like the bases of the pilasters and columns of the new Court House. 
Woodworths' chemical works are also on the same ground. 

This in those days celebrated rookery, was a lot of low wood 
buildings, strung together for renting purposes and filled with all 
conceivable atrocities, from dusky white to ebony darkness, a per- 
fect five points Billingsgate. They were all bipeds, though no 
chickens by any means — a volunteer Pawn Brokers shop, where all 
lost property was looked for and often recovered. It once took 
fire at one end, and such getting down stairs was a caution to shins 
and chemises ; it was early of a Sunday morning and brought to- 
gether all the loose unwashed loafer b'hoys of the city, and they 
like an unruly mob, snow-balled the fire out, for the fun of breaking 
the windows and hitting the flying fugitives by the way of giving 
them a good start. It has long gone the way of the degenerate. 

On the same side, near the corner of Sophia street, yet stands an 
old yelloio tico-story house, now occupied as a carpenter's shop, and 
was built by Lester Beardsley^ a master builder, for his private 
dwelling, and he laid himself out to produce something above the 
vulgar of those days, but is now so far behind the light house of 
modern improvement, that a minnie ball at a long shot would 
never reach it. He was an estimable citizen and died of cholera 
in 1832. 

The next noted point that I remember of the mile stones of 
departed times, is the old Buffalo Pumj) ; and there are many yet 
living that have worshipped at its shrine. It stood on the north side, 
about midway between Sophia and Washington streets ; stately and 
bold, defying with its stout right arm all concocted drinks, and 
was a fountain of the purest drinking water ; though in those days 

of " do as you d please," it was not in as good repute as in 

these days of the Good Templars. In those days, when milk and 
water lived " in single blessedness" and whiskey was eighteen 
pence a gallon, an old hummer said, "what is the use of water 
any way, when whiskey is so cheap." Yet this blessed fountain 
was almost the sole dependence of the aboriginals of the incipient 
city, for their tea, and drink water, and were better off" than we arc 
now, with the iron water pipes lying in the gutters. The first great 
sewer ruined its source of water. 

Nearly opposite and not five rods distant, was a fine sulphur 
spring, which was improved by Dr. Vought with bath and shower- 



12 

ing conveniencies ; a bar room and ladies' dressing room, and had 
a good deal of popularity and patronage, but is now lost in the abyss 
of brick and mortar. 

The next noted point is the north-west corner of Buffalo and 
Sophia street, now occupied by a new brick saloon, once covered by 
the notorious Love's Block, a long row of two story, cheap erections, 
standing on stilts, under which was a standing pool of green stag- 
nant water ; the receptacle of all the filth, stenches and abomina- 
tions of a crowded mass of the lowest grade of tenants. During 
the cholera season of '32, the nuisance was so palpable, and the 
danger so threatening, and no immediate lawful means at hand to 
correct it, that a large collection of our best citizens, knowing the 
law, tolerated the abatement of pressing and dangerous nuisances 
vi et a7'mis, took possession of the implements of a hook and lad- 
der company and at once commenced its demolition. During the 
operation, some boys set fire to some straw beds in an upper room 
the tenants had left, and in a few minutes the whole house was in 
flames. The bells rang and all the fire companies turned out, to- 
gether with a great mass of the population. The firemen were not 
permitted to turn a drop of water on the fire, ouly on other exposed 
buildings. The whole concern in a few minutes was dust and ashes. 
Some prosecutions grew out of the affair, but were ignored by the 
courts. 

On the next lot yet stands, about thirty feet back from the street, 
a two story brick building, now occupied as a boarding house, 
which was built about the year 1824 or 5, by the celebrated Mor- 
gan of anti-masonic memory — he being a mason by trade. The an- 
tecedents of this house, gave it atone period considerable notoriety. 

A little farther up on the opposite side, now stands a queer con- 
glomerate of traps known as Rohh's Block, which is said to be in- 
combustible, as it is so packed with tenants that no foot square 
could be on fire, without discovery, by singing some ones head. 
For the investment, it is said to be the most profitable concern in 
all tenantdom, at any rate, it has the finest loater and the poorest 
tvhiskej/, that ever passed the portals of a drouthy throat. 

To the east and north of Washington street, including part of 
Sophia and Center Square and that quarter, was originally a most 
determined, deep, quaggy swamp, where cattle were mired and lost ; 
now by draining and filling up, is built upon and become good and 
desirable locations. 

In those early times, an old fat Mohawk Dutchman lived on the 
borders of this campagna of miasms and malaria. He did'nt seem 
to mind it at all ; his' cheeks looked like two fresh smoked hams, 
and his corporate capacity like a sack of hops ; sat one spring 
morning in all his rotundity in his door, quietly smoking his pipe. 
A passer-by asked him how he got along in these days. -'Ah, fust 
rate — dip dop, only if it was not for dat tam Buffalo bump." 
" Why, what has that to do with it?" " Vel den, you see, it is so 
hanty to Chones' grocery, dat he buts too much vater in mine 



13 

viskey." " Well, what again has that to do with it ?" ■• Veil den, 
you see dis not very healthy times, so when I first gits up, I takes 
a glass of viskey, for a eye opener, den I smokes a pit, and den I 
looks out on de swamp, and ven I sees a bit of fog coming, I dakes 
anoder triuk and I smokes agin, as he rises T keeps on trinkin and 
smokiu to keep off de ager, sometimes more den ten times, but dat 
was tam bad fog, den I trinks mine preckfast and keeps sharp look 
out for de fog all day." 

To the north and west of thiw is a dry chestnut ridge, where in 
early times was fine hunting for stjuirrel, patridge, snipe, deer and 
wolves were killed in what is now the limits of the city and their 
vicinity. 

As you pass over Bufi"alo street canal bridge, you come to the 
old burying ground, where now stands the City Hospital. There 
were probably 5,000 persons buried there, not more than 500 were 
ever removed to 3Iount Hope, and the balance are now graded over, 
sodded and used as pleasure grounds. How would the 4,000 sen- 
tient human beings have felt, in the plentitude of their health and 
strength, if they thought their osseous structures and fleshy in- 
teguments were to be desecrated in that manner, — not pleasantly 
under our prevailing ideas on that subject, but in reality it matters 
not, 

"For when the spirit free and warm, 

Deserts it as it must; 
What matter where the lifeless form, 

Dissolves again to dust," 

and it may not be considering it too philosophically to suppose, that 
our corporeal atoms may in a few decades form a beer jug, or 
mortar to stop the winters cold. Ohc ! jam satis. 

On going north on Carroll, changed to State street through en- 
mity and revenge against one of the original proprietors. Col. Car- 
roll, for some transaction the council thought rather selfish and 
unjust in him. The spite of changing the name was generally 
thought ungenerous, improper and ungentlemanly. T recognize 
but few buildings of those early times. Kempshall & West 
had a rather imposing front of red cut free stone, located about 
where is now the Ellwanger & Barry Block, and nearly opposite, 
Brewster & Blanchard erected a block of stores with a grey sawed 
sandstone front, with rustic corners and courses — now Concert 
Hall, both long since displaced to make room for more modern and 
imposing structures. About this region on the west side, the 
Presbyterian meeting house was placed, and the first religious 
society organized, consisting of 16 members; and somewhere in 
that vicinity was an apology for a Theatre, afterwards Christopher's 
livery stables. 

Farther along on the east side, at the foot of Piatt street, stood 
the political old % cdhin in " Tip. and Ti/. — Tippecanoe and Ti/ler 
too" times, where only hard cider was drank and pork and beans 
eaten on chips, will be well remembered by many now living. 
Those were lively times ; candidates were sung into office and sung 



14 

out of ofi&ce ; Dagger, Rope and Ratsbane were of no account. We 
then assassinated with quavers and demis-emi-quavers. 

In 1816, W. J. McCracken, in that part of the city called 
Frankfort, erected the tavern house now known as the North 
American Jlotel^ and was the only building of any importance for 
the convenience of travellers and strangers in the city, and the 
only frame building from thence to the Eagle corners. Old Bully 
Mac is still living. 

Tlie ohl Cotton Factory stood about where the Shawmut Mills 
now are; those and the Pboenix Mill of Doct. Matthew Brown, 
were the first improvements in that time. The present cotton fac- 
tory is the third edition of that manufacturing business. The two 
first, one was torn down, the other owned by Sidney S. Allcott, was 
burned. 

About these days, the Buffalo street Bridge became unsafe and 
had to be closed, and Messrs. Mumford & Andrews put over a toll 
bridge, a few rods above the present Railroad structure, it stood 
till a new one was built when it went into disuse and decay, and 
for many years past no vestige of either piers or abutments exist. 

The dwelling house built by Setli Sexton, one of our early mer- 
chants, stood in the rear of Congress Hall and the Waverly Block, 
and has long since disappeared. 

Of the early clergymen I only remember Revs. Comfort Williams, 
Joseph Penny, F. H. Cumming. Williams James and Orrin Miller. 
Of early physicians, only Drs. Ellwood, Coleman, Brown and Backus, 
of any note. In 1827 there were 28 lawyers ; they are a prolific 
breed, their name now is Legion, and the doctors are now as multi- 
tudinous, from Catmint, Hoarhound and Boneset, though all the 
patliies up to the clairvoyance and laying on of hands. 

A building of some remark on Buifalo street, is the large struc- 
ture lately known as the University, built by Martin Clapp in 1828, 
and thought in early days to be a wild speculation, as it did 
eventually turn out — ruining the builder. It was afterwards kept 
by J. L. D. Matthies as the United States Hotel, at the front door 
of which the Tonawanda Railroad, as it was then called, ended and 
landed its passengers, which is now one portion of the great Central 
New York road. 

The Tonawanda Railroad in those days, almost a visionary pro- 
ject, was commenced in 1835, now near 33 years ago, and was the 
fir.st rod of road laid in this State, except the road from Albany to 
Schenectady and the Horse Railroad to Carthage. It was never 
even conceived, or entered into the imaginations of the half dozen 
or more capitalists and projectors, that it would ever be connected 
with the Albany road, great West and the rest of this great con- 
tinent. Its object was to carry passengers going and coming from 
the new countries and to bring down live stock and perishable 
articles, grain and produce during the close of the canals in winter, 
all for the benefit of our city and home market. 

At that time passengers were the great object calculated upon 



15 

for profit, and very little dependence was laid on it for freight, 
now the great reliance for dividends. The passenger cars got up 
for this road, if they could be exhibited now, would be laughed 
into utter insignificance. They were 14 or 15 feet long with two 
cross seats at each ead, holding three or four persons each, with an 
upper story in the center for the same number, and the space un- 
derneath for baggage making 24 passengers, where they now carry 
from 60 to 100." 

If those cars could be exhibited as excavated from the ruins of 
Herculaneum they might be tolerated, but compared with our 
present palaces, would be the incarnation of absurdity. There is 
no vestige of them left, nor has been for many years. 

The construction of the road was an anomaly among modern con- 
structions ; it was laid on sleepers 20 feet long ; large logs flattened 
on one side ; a 3x4 pine scantling and a 2^ inch strap rail spiked 
down together. This rail after a year or two was found to be too 
light, liable to snake heads on every trip ; the whole was stripped 
off and lost and a 3 inch and thicker one substituted ; but 
the whole concern was soon a total failure and the entire rails 
and superstructure thrown away, which was renewed on the present 
plan with the T rail. The whole original capital was nearly sunk 
and lost, ruining several deserving persons. Not one of the original 
projectors, that I can think of are, now alive. 

To show how great oaks from little acorns grow, I will give the 
receipts of the road for the first two weeks it ran, I am not certain 
whether to Batavia or only to Byron : 

Sept. 22d, 1836, 6 tons of salt; 23d, 500 lbs. ft.; 24th, ft. 25 
cts.; 26th, pass. 25 cts.; 27th, pass. $1.50, ft. 600 lbs.; 28th, pass. 
50 cts.; 29th, pass. $1 ; 30th, pa.s3. $1 ; Oct. 1st, 18 bbls. salt ; 3d, 
pass. 75 cts., 3 bbls. salt; 4th, pass. S1.63, 17 bbls. salt, ft. 200 lbs. 

In comparison with the present trafic it is an infusoria to an 
Elephant. Now there pass through this city in the period of the 
foregoing report, more than 10,000 passengers and 100,000 tons of 
freight. 

What an institution is the genius of man ; he scans and weighs 
the heavenly bodies, decides exactly the materials that compo.se the 
sun, and with daring innovation, sends the red artillery of heaven 
around the earth and hoops it with bands of iron, and compels 
nondescript monsters to fly careering over and under mountains 
and rivers, through every part of the globe. Where is it all to 
end ? With our splendid cars and sleeping palaces ; why not 
Boarding Houses cheaper than Metropolitans or Osborn Hotels ; 
yea even ball-room cars, in which a party can dance a figure and 
piroutte at Buffalo and chasaee back to Rochester. Who knows 'f 
Only give us a double track, magnetic wheels and cold steam, and 
we will live on board in these emigrating domicils and go in for a 
good time generally. 

We are rather a wonderful penple ; we stop at nothing that the 
wildest- imagination can suggest, imly two steps more and we should 



16 

be classed by ancient mythology among the Gods, — flying and 
perpetual motion — there rests the limits of human invention — the 
ultima fhulc of Yankee genius, we may add the quadrature of the 
circle and then we are foundered in the quagmire of impossibilities. 
It is not generally known that on excavating the Valley Canal, 
about where Sophia street bridge crosses, that the natural bones of 
a pre-adamite animal of the Mammoth or Mastodon species were 
found and are now in the State Museum at Albany. Two citizens 
were walking on the unfinished work and discovered among the 
earth wheeled out, large lumps of a white material like chalk, but 
a closer examination found they were decayed ivory, with the pecu- 
liar concentric rings of that material. By further search they 
found, the point, or tip of an enormous tusk, and several rib bones 
and vertebrae ; they also found the shell or enamel of a part of the 
tusk, that was eight or nine inches in diameter. On enquiring of 
the superintendent he referred them to the laboi'crs that worked 
at that point, but they being Patlanders knew nothing about it, 
only one said he carried out two or three barrow loads of rotten 
liickory maple ; but it was so covered by earth that it was a very 
serious job to search for them, or the entire skeleton might probably 
have been found. 

This is allowed to be a very meagre country for the mineralogist, 
with very few mineral specimens, or rare formations worth ob- 
serving. The scratched and polished rocks underlie the whole 
drift of this region, and are supposed to be the results of Prof. 
Agassiz's icebergs, and are in many places very distinct. 

There is a singular formation cropping out going up Buffalo 
street, this side of St. Mary's Hospital, of the cornitiferous lime 
rock and is supposed to be the secretion and deposit of a small 
animal, and is a coralite or rather a madreporite, and contains often 
very beautiful and rare crystals of the Jiuate of lime, which with 
a streak of Galena lead ore, just below the river dam at the rapids, 
are worth observation. 

The most noticeable formation of the rocks of this region are to 
be examined on the high banks of the river at Buell's Avenue. 
Their general dip is about 55 feet to the mile, a little west of south, 
and the strata undulates in waves, and the depressions are filled 
up with the greatest mechanical nicety, till they reach the general 
level; when another regular course commences, of which there 
are several instances. In the immediate vicinity, a strata of 
the red oxt;de of iron, which underlies this country from near 
Utica to Niagara Falls, where it wedges out. It is a singular for- 
mation composed of the broken members of those articulated sea 
animals called Encrimtcs, and grouted in with iron, and is com- 
posed of about 40 per cent, iron to GO of lime, and is a fine flux 
for magnetic and refractory ores. 

The red sali/erous sand stone of the river banks contain no or- 
ganic remains, except quite on the surface, abundance of fucoides ; 
supposed to be the incipient action of prolific nature, to produce 



17 

f 

the first attempt of vegetable organization, during the deposition o 
the sedimentary rocks. On a level and a little north of the paper 
mills there is a lime stone strata very prolific in the remains of the 
pentamerus ohlongata. 

There have occurred in Rochester three or four criminal trials 
of extraordinary interest, the like of which can hardly be matched 
in the calender of criminal jurisprudence. 

The trial of Barron for the robbery and murder of Ljjman, on 
Franklin street, on the east side, elicited the greatest concentration 
and array of circumstantial evidence ever brought before a jury, 
rendering the fatal result as palpable as a voice from heaven. 

The murder of Little^ an attorney, by Ira Stout, in attempting 
to throw him ofi" the high bank below the Falls, after stunning 
him by a blow of a hammer, when they went down together a dis- 
tance of 150 feet, killing Little his brother-in-law, and himself 
wounded and arm broken. He was hung, and the wife of Little 
sent to State Prison for seven years, — since pardoned out and very 
well married. 

The trials of Bleglei\ Hardenhrook^ and liobinson, excited the 
feelings of the whole city, from the previous high standing of the 
parties. Being rather recent transactions, are familiar with most 
citizens. The adage : 

■ That prisoners must han</ that jurymen may dine," is often re- 
versed by many of our recondite jurys and escajje substituted. 

The murder, many years ago, of Porter P. Pierce, a popular 
young man, and Emily Moore, an interesting young lady; both of 

whom were found in the river, and the singular killing of 

Orton, were exciting topics in those days. In neither instance has 
the remotest discovery been made of the perpetrators of these 
enormities, on even well grounded suspicious been adopted, and it 
would seem almost to ignore and falsify the almost scriptural 
proverb, that murder ivill out. 

On thinking over the varied scenes and events that have passed 
over my limited vision and memory, I find a few more noted points, 
that I wish to rescue from the all devouring maw of time, that 
will soon obliterate their existence from the memories of the 
present age and be lost to those that shall come after us. 

What digression all this is from a history of Bufi"alo street. 
But when an old Covet/, who can better remember about men and 
transactions fifty years ago, than he can what he ate for dinner 
yesterday, he must be allowed to tap the barrel and let it slide, pre- 
mising that the food of the old is retrospection of the past, while 
that of the young is the present and anticipation. So let us jog 
along. 

As one of the transactions notable in the programme of the 
drama of the city of llochester, the feats of the immortal Sam 
Patch must not be overlooked. This amphibious biped, was en- 
dowed with a very feeble mind and low grade of intelligence ; he 



18 

loved the ardent, and resorted to the original device of jumping 
from great heights to raise the means to gratify his ruling passion, 
and by a very unintentional exploit, immortalized his feat and his 
name, and will be read of and quoted, and illustrated, when Web- 
ster, Calhoun, Douglass and Sumnere^, id omne genus, are lost in the 
bottomless pit of oblivion Yea, ten thousand years hence, when 
the brink of the Genesee cataract shall have worn up and destroyed 
the great ship canal aqueduct, his name and exploit will " point 
a paragraph and adorn a tale," in the North and South American, 
West Indian, Kamtschatkan and Cape Horn Magazine," with the 
caption of Sam's motto, " some things can he done as well as others." 

Having performed at Paterson, N. J., and at Niagara Falls, he 
came to this city and put up notices for jumping down the Genesee 
Falls, on the 8th day of November, 1829, and on that day, a large 
concourse of citizens attended the exhibition, and true to his 
promise, himself and a tame hear took the fearful leap and came 
up safely, to the great satisfaction of all the beholders. Not satis- 
fied with this performance, he then proposed on the 13th of Novem- 
ber, to leap from a scaffold erected on the brink of the falls, 20 
feet in height, making the descent considerable over 100 feet. On 
the specified day, the world, his wife and their remotest relations, 
apparently, were on the ground to witness his great feat ; the 
country ran mad on the subject in almost countless numbers. The 
river banks, roofs of buildings, trees and every attainable foothold 
were alive with men women and children. He came on the ground 
at the specified time, quite tipsy, took a last drink, mounted the 
scaffold, and after a half hours speechifying and cutting up various 
monkey capers, took the awful plunge — a profound silence pre- 
vailed over the vast multitude, — every eye bent on the rippling 
waves where he entered the water ; a hush equal to the primeval 
chaos existed for near ten minutes, when spontaneously every 
mouth proclaimed, he is lost — he is dead ! Such a prostration of 
feeling on this fool-hardy event, took effect on the spectators, that 
in less than five minutes every animate creature had fled from the 
premises — silent, sober and melancholy. 

Instead of entering the water feet foremost, he struck on his- 
side, with a force it was estimated at the time, exceeding 4,000 
pounds. 

A story extensively prevailed, that he came up under the rocks 
and played Possum till night, when he decamped. It obtained a 
considerable degree of credit, so much so, that Mr. Coit, of one of 
the eastern towns, being in the city some few months after the 
affair where the subject was broached, said he knew the fact of 
Sam's being alive, and he could prove it. The late Mr. Jacob 
Graves being present, said he would not be afraid to risk all he was 
■worth that it was not so. Mr. Coit replied, " I have a hundred 
dollars that I will put up, that I can not only prove it, but that I 
will produce him alive in 24 hours." Mr. G. drew his check for 
that amount ; it was put in a third parties hands. 



19 

The circumstances that deceived Mr. C, were these : When 
Sam came first to Rochester, he stopped at Mr. C.'s house and had 
a meal of vituals, so that he supposed he could recognise him 
again. A few days previous to the wager, a poor looking tramp 
came along and asked for lodging, of very much the same size and 
aspect of Sam Patch." " How are you Sam ?" said Mr. C. " All 
right," said the counterfeit ; and by Mr. C.'s questions, he entered 
into all the particulars of his escape, completely satisfying him of 
his identity. 

On going home after making the wager, and relating the circum- 
stances of the bet to his man, who he had set to sawing wood, 
Why, said the pretented Sam, " I am sorry you -have done that, 
for to own the truth, I am not in reality Sam Patch ; I let you call 
me so as I was hard up, and I wanted some place to stay, and if I 
ever get money enough I will pay it back to you." 

The money was cheerfully given up, but I think declined under 
the peculiar circumstances by Mr. G. 

The writer of this article applied to the municipal authorities, to 
prevent and hinder the dangerous and useless exhibition, but they 
paid no attention to it. 

If time is money, together with the unavoidable expenses of a 
vast multitude, some from a great distance, it cost the city and 
county not less than 10,000 dollars, to say nothing of one ipositive 
death, several broken limbs, and whole hecatombs of inflammation of 
the lungs, andincipient consumptions, from standing on the banks 
two or three hours, in a raw, severe, suicidal day in November. 

The next spring his body was found at the mouth of the river, 
and was buried in the Charlotte Cemetery. 

This ends the rather remarkable tragedy of Sam Patch. 

About the year 1830, the Mechanics' Institute, now the Athe- 
neiim, ordered from Catlin, the celebrated portrait painter, (who 
spent eight or ten years among all the Indian tribes this side the 
Rocky Mountains illustrating by his pencil and pen their features 
and habits,) a portrait of De Witt Clinton, for which they were to 
pay him 400 dollars. On its completion, he forwarded it by a 
young brother, a very promising genius and of fine personal quali- 
fications. After delivering his charge and receiving his pay, he 
wished to take a sketch of the Genesee Falls, and taking a position 
on the shore below the high bank, to gain a sand bar in the mid- 
dle of the river, he disrobed himself and attempted to wade over, 
but the water being too deep, he sank and was drowned. An old 
Irishman who was fishing some distance below, saw the whole affair 
and r'an to his assistance, but too late to save him ; he immediately 
gave information, and several citizens went to the spot and found 
his clothes, but no pocket-book, money or gold watch. 

The old man was arrested, his cabin searched, which was a mis- 
erable hole, equally house or hog pen. A strong sea chest that he 
had brought over with him was examined, and among the queerest 
lot of old hats, coats, petticoats, &c., was found an old stocking 



20 

containing 300 English guineas, which he accounted for by stating 
that although he lived by fishing and begging, the money was 
rightfully his, and he was keeping it for his children, who he ex- 
pected would soon be over. Nothing appearing against him he 
was discharged. 

About three or four months after, some boys playing on the 
shore, on turning over a large flat stone, disclosed the articles all 
safe and sound. Whether the body was ever found, or what dis- 
position was made with the property, I disremember, or what be- 
came of the portrait. It was said at the time of the break up of 
the institute and change to the Atheneum, that there was some 
White House operations, this like a thousand other rumors may be 
mere moonshine. 

One of the most noble and noticeable institutions of the city of 
Rochester, is its Cemetery, unrivalled in its picturesque and 
romantic scenery, diversified with plateau, hill and dale, forest trees 
and second growth shrubbery, and planted with exotic and native 
trees, — an elevated dry gravelly soil, its landscape is incomparable, 
and it may not be making too tine a point to say, it was formed by 
nature and placed in a position — an elective affinity — expressly for 
the use of the dead representatives of humanity. 

These grounds look down upon the city, the surrounding 
countrytand the Genesee River as upon a map, — the vast expanse of 
Lake Ontario is in full view, which renders its position and forma- 
tion one of the extraordinary features of this region. 

The animal power railroad, fine flagged side walks and iron 
bridge over the river, render the Cemetery of easy access, and a 
great resort to citizens and strangers in fine weather. 

Yet with all its beautiful imagery and unsurpassed advantages ; 
when the purchase was proposed to the authorities, it met with the 
most vehement opposition ; but better councils prevailed and it be- 
came what it now is, the great (tgrarian hoarding and lodging house 
in the cltij of the dead. The patrician and plebian all sit at the 
same table, " not where they eat, but where they are eaten" 
(Shak.), no fault finding or discontent, universal silence, peace and 
brotherly love prevails, yet with all this quietude and peace, how 
abhorent to our nature is its approach. 

" But to die and go we know not where ; 
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 
This sensible warm motion to become 
A kneaded clod ; oh 'tis horrible! 
The weariest and most loathed worldly life, 
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature, is a paradise 
To what we fear of death." 

• S: * * * * * :H * 

Mount Hope is considered a most proper and happy designa- 
tion, for the last resting place for the frail tenements of humanity. 

Its name combines all the holy and dependent attributes, that we 
anticipate and trust in life and death. The poet says, 

" The miserable have no other mediciae. 
But only Hope." 



21 

This fortunate name was not the result of long and learned con- 
sultation, thought and search, but the happy conception of a single 
individual, a sub-officer of the city municipality, who presented at 
a meeting of the Common Council, a bill '' for work and labor done 
on Mount Hope Cemetery," it took the usual course of being 
adopted and published in the next daily papers. It obtained im- 
mediate popularity, and was assumed as the act of the authorities, 
and no further action had, or further question made on the subject. 

At the time the purchase of the lot of 100 acres, it was thought 
by many as a most extravagant outlay ; but it has already turned 
out as altogether too limited, and additional territory has already 
been procured, the best ground there was adjoining, but not of the 
best quality for its intentions, and this has occurred even at this 
early period, not more than about thirty years from its adoption. 

When we consider from known facts, derived from the bills of 
mortality of the civilized world, that a whole generation dies off in 
33 or 34 years, that is, as many human beings pass the dark portal, 
as existed on the globe at that time (1,200,000,000) twelve 
hundred millions in that short period cease to exist. 
• Now it follows clearly and beyond cavil, that out of our pre- 
sumed population, 60,000 bodies must be deposited in this and the 
Catholic burying grounds within 33 years from this time, and it is 
a proper enquiry to make and ask, where are they all to be laid ? 
for it is even now a fact, that any one the least fastidious in the 
■choice of a desirable, or favorite location, cannot procure one to 
his satisfaction. 

There seems to be no other resort, but to procure the property 
lying opposite and across the public highway, which belongs to a 
gentleman, who duly appreciates its value and means to enjoy it — 
and does, in a liberal, hospitable and gentlemanly manner. 

There is no doubt but tliat it can be purchased and must so 
eventuate, but we may have to cover it with golden eagles, and 
them edgewise. 

The grounds of Mount Hope have been greatly improved and 
beautified, recently by the present superintendent, Mr. Stillson, 
and in 50 years it will be a noted point of attraction and visitation 
by citizens and visitors, as one of the sight-seeing objects so credit- 
able to our civil and religious community, everlasting in its beauty 
and sanctity. 

Rochester Kiiochinrjs, as weak and silly an imposture as it is, has 
conferred upon this city more notoriety and local celebrity, than all 
other occurrences that ever transpired within its boundaries. It 
has been spoken of and commented upon in Europe and by every 
press, man and woman in the Unitnd States. 

An uneducated country girl, Miss Fox, now Fox Kane, and iicr 
sister Mrs. Fish, with as some have thouglit the sprimj haltov ^onxQ 
peculiar developed muscle of the huj toe, with occasional assistance 
from confederates, deceived the most critical examinations before 
intelligent public meetings, and at her private residence, where 
hundreds consulted her as one of the sybils of fate. 



22 

After setting the whole country in a blaze of wonder and 
curiosity, thinking this city too limited a sphere for their opera- 
tions, went to the city of New York, where they have given private 
seances for several years. 

One of them having failed in securing the property of Dr. Kane, 
the famous Arctic explorer, claiming to be his lawful wife, and justly 
as we think, has now opened shop, it is stated, in Philadelphia, un- 
der the nose of the brother, the successful claimant, probably to 
follow her vocation and annoy the possessor of the property. 

About the time the advent of the knockings had its day, mes- 
merism and table tippinij had a great run ; it seemed as if delusion 
and humbug ruled the hour, engaging the attention of thousands 
and having many proselytes ; but all the vagaries of the day gave 
way to the more mysterious and mystified delusion of clairvoyance 
and modern spiritualism and writing mediums. 

The single fact, that the spirits of those who when in life, were 
of the highest grade of intellect, of great genius and learning, are 
called to the presence of pretended mediums, communicating with 
us freely, and with those, who, while in the body would not be worthy 
to black their shoes, and yet up to this time, no one instance has oc- 
curred, by which mankind have been benefited or enlightened 
on any of those points which are inscrutable to mortals, while 
they, the spirits, ra.iging with the velocity of thought through all 
space ; following the tracks of the stellar worlds — familiar with 
all the arcana and workings of the wonderful machinery that God 
has constructed in heaven's great workshop of nature ; but not a 
hint, an allusion to enlighten us in the great mysteries ; no illustra- 
tion of any science ; no allusion to the nature of diseases ; nothing 
for the benefit of the toiling millions to improve their condition. 
In short, not one iota of benefit has been derived from all the pre- 
tended communications of spirits from the higher .spheres. The 
Bible, the Saviour, Heaven and Hell are ignored, and every sensible 
and well established fact and doctrine of the present day, set at 
naught by visionary theories, without one palpable evidence of 
their reliability. 

Why cannot they satisfy us, whether the sun and solar system 
are merely satellites or not, to a stupendous central planet around 
which they revolve. What the constituency of Jupiter's belts 
and Saturn's rings. Whether there is an outer planet to Neptune: 
What the periodical shooting stars. Whether the great planets 
are inhabited, and by what beings. What is the cause of the spots 
on the sun, and any of the thousand abstruse and inscrutable sub- 
jects to us sublunarians. Enlighten us with one question's worth ; 
if nothing else, say if the moon is made of green cheese. It is a 
fathomless abysm of airy nothing — the climax of absurdities. 

Balloons. The first attempt at a balloon ascention in this city 
was made in 1836, now 31 years ago, by a French Aeronaut, 
named Lauriatt, on the grounds now occupied by the Waverly 
Block, Congress Hall and the Railroad depot, then vacant lots, all 



23 

properly enclosed. There was a large attendance both inside and 
outside. It being before street gas was introduced, he was obliged 
to create his hydrogen from acids and iron turnings. On attempt- 
ing to test its buoyancy, he found it would not lift himself without 
any ballast, and after adding a keg of nails to his retort, it was no 
go. He then excused his failure by saying his material was bad 
by being mixed with cast iron, producing the heavy carbonic gas. 
He then made proclamation that a fortnight from that day, he 
would return and do justice to the exhibition. 

A lot of roughs fell foul of the balloon, determined to cut and 
destroy it, and did make two or three apertures, when some one 
cut the guy rope and away it went soaring swiftly aloft ; losing its 
gas rapidly, it fell in the river a half mile or more below. 

On the day appointed he made his appearance and effected a 
most successful ascension, remaining in sight for over a half hour, 
and landed safely at Sodus Bay, 24 miles from the city. 

The most remarkable transaction, was the falling of the roof of 
a blacksmith shop at one corner of the enclosure, which was alive 
with men and boys, some of whom were slightly hurt, and one man 
fell on an axe that was screwed in a vice with the handle up and 
forced it completely through the fleshy part of his thigh, between 
the great muscle and the bone, and such was h\s situation, that the 
late Dr. Reid had to saw it in two to extract it, and what is equally 
singular, it affected him so little, that he was able to perform his 
ordinary light work, got well, and is now a hearty, hale old man. 
He was from the country, by the name of Frisby. 

Subsequent to this, some years, Prof. Steiner made several suc- 
cessful ascensions, in one of which a lady actress of the city 
theatre was his companion. 

The Pinnacle, a high hill lying south-east of the city, was selected 
a number of years ago, for a grand and imposing exhibition of the 
4th of July ceremonies ; the precise year of which my memory is 
oblivious ; but think it was in 1826, the semi-centenial year from 
the declaration of Independence. 

Considerable preparations were made ; a 32 pounder cannon 
was dragged up j a large temporary building was erected and filled 
with fire works. 

The manager and superintendent was a young man by the name 
of Gilchrist, who, through some oversight, or accident, set fire to 
some article of the fire works the night before the fourth, when 
the whole instantly inflamed, together with the powder for the 
cannon, blowing the whole concern to atoms, and in a moment 
killing young Gilchrist. The precise spot where this unfortunate 
accident happened, I am notable to locate, but think it is was where 
now is St. Patricks cemetery. 

This transaction is probably not known to one in a thousand of the 
present inhabitants of this city. So does pass the remembrance 
of even much more important events, the death of beloved 
relatives, intimate friends — even war, pestilence and famine, like 



24 

" the baseless fabric of a vision," passes away and is forgotten. 
The openiny of the Erie Canal is a subject passed from the 
memories and knowledged of most of our citizens now living. It 
was then thought to be the crowning achievement of a great and 
patriotic people; of more importance than a mere idle ditch, as it 
is now fast becoming. The great and increasing Railroad i^y stem ^ is 
its powerful and determined antagonist, and a most fatal one, and so 
will continue, until they are forced to pay toll during the 
canal season. Systematic monopoly, money and corrupt legisla- 
tion are the bane of this great work ; and as times are now pro- 
gressing, the day is not far in futurity when the noble structure, 
the admiration and wonder of the world in times past, that a single 
state in the very gristle of its maturity, should alone and unaided 
perfect so stupendous a work, and the day is coming when it will 
become a stagnant pool, mantled over with green frog spawn and 
duck weed, and 2,000 boats be rotting down in piecemeal — sinking 
to ruin without making a ripple — silence and solitude ruling the 
waste. 



The announcement that the canal was completed, preparations 
were made to have a grand celebration. Cannon were distributed 
at proper distances along the whole line from Buffalo to New York 
city, and on the 26th of October, 1825, the guns were fired at 
intervals of one minute and reached New York in one hour and 
twenty minutes, and was returned in the same time to Buffalo, a 
distance of over 1,100 miles in less than three hours. The boat 
Seneca Chief, onboard of which was Gov. DcWitt CVm^on and other 
distinguished individuals, and various committtees from every part 
of the line, who were addressed by Jesse Hawley in behalf of the 
citizens of Rochester. A tug boat followed, called Noah's Ark, 
loaded with a great variety of the productions of the west; among 
which were two Indian boys in full costume, a large bear, two live 
eagles, two fawns, and many other animals, birds and fish, among 
which were two highly finished kegs filled with lake water, to min- 
gle with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, at the marital cere- 
monies of joining hearts and hands of the great lakes and the sea. 

At every village on the line, great preparations were made to 
receive and honor the celebration and the first through boat. 

On the 27th, at 2 o'clock they arrived at Rochester, where was 
drawn up at the aqueduct, eight compauies of militia soldiers, who 
fired a grand feu de joie. and the boat Young Lion of the West, 
was stationed on guard to protect the entrance, who hailed the 
pioneer boat. 

" Who comes there V 

" Your brethren of the west from the waters of the great lakes.'' 

" By what means have they been diverted from their natural, 
course V 

" By the channel of the grand Erie Canal." 



25 

'• By whose authority and by whom was a work of such magni- 
tude accomplished ?" 

•• By the authority aud enterprise of the patriotic people of the 
State of New York." 

•• All right ! Pass." 

The Youug Lion then gave way and the Seneca Chief was allowed 
to enter the aqueduct, when Gen. Vincent Matthews and John C. 
Spencer, offered the congratulations of the citizens of Rochester. 
A procession was formed and marched to the first Presbyterian 
Church, where, after an apropriate prayer by the Rev. Joseph Pen- 
ny, Timothy Chihh, ^'sy., delivered a most eloquent and pertinent 
address. After which they repaired to Christopher's Mansion 
House and partook of a most sumptous dinner. Gen. Matthews 
presided, assisted by Jesse Hawley and Jonathan Child. 

The squadron of boats then departed. The Young Lion of the 
West, among a large number of citizens, had on board as a com- 
mittee for New-York, Elisha B. Strong, Levi Ward, William B. 
Rochester, Abelard Reynolds, Elisha Johnson, Gen. E. S. Beach, 
Rufus Meech, A. Strong and B. F. Hurlburt. Now, in the short 
space of 42 years, but one of all the persons named in the whole 
transaction, are alive, Mr. Abelard Reynolds, now eighty-two 
years of age, enjoying a measurable state of health, and the respect 
and veneration of every citizen of this broad city. " None know 
him but to love him ; none name him but to praise." 

The Great Flood of 1865 was the most disastrous event that 
ever occurred in this city, by fire, tornado or any other casuality, 
doing a damage of more than $200,000, demolishing buildings, 
tearing up pavements and sewers, and causing a large portion of 
the inhabitants of the first and second wards to leave their places 
of business in boats — a catastrophe to which we are liable agt^in 
at every periodical rise of the River, and even one greatly more 
calamitous. 

The person who had the credit of predicting this great flood, 
almost precisely as it happened, not only deposited them in the 
corner stone of the Court House, so certain was he of its fulfilment, 
lAit a prescient one of a much more extreme damaging occurance 
to which this city is liable, which, as near as I can remember, was 
about to this eff'ect : He supposes the obstruction to happen at the 
Aqueduct, by ice or flood wood, until the whole water of the River 
pours over like a mill-dam, five or ten feet in depth ; consequently the 
Canal being of the same level would send the water over its banks 
of the same depth, from Exchange street bridge to the deep Hol- 
low, and through the entire territory of the first, second and ninth 
wards. This great calamity he predicts will eventually take place, 
and probably within the life time of many now living, the result of 
which will be a thousand times more disastrous than the flood of 
1865. It might even form a new channel from near the Jail, over 
Exchange street to Spring, through the natural valley to Buffalo 
and Sophia streets, sweeping away every vestige of the Canal, 

4 



26 

rushing witli relentless fury, wash away the entire surface down 
to the rock, the average depth to which does not exceed ten feet — 
undermining every structure not founded on the rock, and stone and 
brick buildings would tumble and crush into fragments like an egg 
shell, and many wood buildings might be carried over the high 
banks into the abyss below the Falls. 

If this catastrophe should happen in the night, or even suddenly 
in the day time, a fearful loss of life would be the result. Ten 
thousand lives might swell the bills of mortality. 
" An old u-eird looman. who had once been well educated and seen 
better times, in appearance — a regular Hecate and fortune teller, 
called the witch woman, who lived in a little hut in the west part 
of the city, was consulted by hundreds on every subject, present 
and future ; and what gave her greater popularity was, that she 
gave all her answers and predictions in doggerel poetry. On a cer- 
tain time, on seeing a great rise in the River, she like one of the 
ancient sybils, uttered the following oracular prediction : 

" When the century is filled with 8, 
Water the city will desolate. 
When filled with the figure 9. 
The falls will reach the transit line." 

I see no interpretation of the prophecy, unless it intends to indi- 
cate the year 1888, twenty years from this time, and the 9, 1999 ; 
what the meaning of the transit line is is incomprehensible. The 
■whole mere twaddle and flummery. 

That there is a great disaster threatening the city even this 
very year of 1868, no reflecting mind can gainsay. The in- 
creasing volume of water every year, and its sudden rise and ad- 
vance, increases a danger that has already shown us its over- 
whelming fury ; which is increased every year by the clearing up 
of the natural forests and the drainage of low lands and swamps, 
whereby instead of percolating gradually through the soil, rushes 
down to swell the larger streams, and produce great floods, and 
excessive low water, and whether it is next month or the next de- 
cade of years, it is sure to revisit us, as the rain is sure to fall, or 
the water to run. 3Iark loell this prediction. 

The change of the face of the country is undoubtedly the remote 
cause ; but the immediate and local cause of the danger, is entirely 
owing to the narrowing of the channel of the River, by crowding 
large structures even beyond low water mark, aud the faulty con- 
struction of the Aqueduct and Main street bridge. Arches are 
worth but little as a water way, when nearly or even half filled, as 
their capacities diminish in an inverse ratio. The bridge should 
have been built on strong narrow straight piers, with an iron su- 
perstructure ; which would have doubled its ability to pass water. 
The objection urged to this plan was, that the frequent renewal of 
the plank covering would be a constant and great expense 5 but it 
is quite clear, that the interest of 60.000 dollars would keep it 
covered with mahogany. The aqueduct is in the same category 



27 

and will sooner or later have to be changed to straight piers and a 
"wooden trunk. 

Nothing will save the 2d and 9th wards short of a levee on the 
ntnh bank of the G ^ aal , embracing the whole valley of the Valley /?/'. n>^ 
(!j/ 'olwwi within the city. A very moderate rise of the River would 
fill and overflow the canal and its herm banks, and over-run the 
Erie at every rod from Fitzhugh street to the deep Hollow, doing 
incalculable damage. 

A large sum was granted by the Legislature to raise the berm 
bank of the Erie canal, which is totally obliterated in almost every 
part west of BuiFalo street bridge ; but our municipal authorities 
did nothing about it, said nothing about it, and apparently cared 
nothing about it — the fund cannot be accounted for — is lost — 
engulphed in the maws of corruption and chicanery of the State 
managers. 

Suspension Bridge. — About 1856 a project was started to con- 
struct a wire bridge over the Genessee River at that point called 
McCrackenville, within the city boundaries, and on the same spot 
where rose and fell the famous Carthage Bridge. 

It was constructed on novel and injudicious principles. The 
towers that supported the cables which were anchored in the 
banks, were a combination of four hollow cylinders or tubes of cast 
iron, screwed together by flangs and bound and braced with 
wrought iron rods. 

There were fovir of these connected columns, two at each end of 
the bridge, about ninety feet in height, and placed on the rock 
terraces below the high bank. It stood for some six or eight 
months, when, during a night in April, a very heavy, wet snow 
falling, of about four inches in depth, caused the entire structure to 
crush and be percipitated into the River, in undistinguishable ruin. 

It is supposed by those who closely investigated the cause of its 
failure, to be the cripplimj of the columns, as there was no wind or 
other means to cause the catastrophe. No one saw it fall, and it 
was stated, only heard by the watchman at the Paper mills. It 
started from the foot of McCraken street, and there is now no ves- 
tige left of its existence, and future antiquarians will look in vain 
for its site. 

The Buell Avenue was a road made at an enormous expense, by 
blasting the entire road way out of the rocks of the high bank, on 
the west side of the River, for over half a mile, to the head of navi- 
gation. There was at the Landing an extensive warehouse, elevator 
for grain, lumber yards and docks. 

The buildings have all been burned. The Charlotte Railroad 
absorbed all the business, and the whole concern is a failure and 
ruin, and in a few years the debris of the high banks will fill the 
road and obliterate the whole concern. 

Tlie Corner Stone of the new Court House, by its contents, will 
some day excite the curiosity and ^risibles of those living at its 
opening, on the destruction of the building, which without the 



28 

intervention of fire or flood, will not be a thousand years hence by 
a long shot, for in a much shorter period, the Lockport cut stone 
will decompose, crumble and deface every member and part of the 
architectural embellishment of columns, 'pilasters, base and foun- 
dation, till it will be as ragged and rough as a singed cat. Even a 
" certain convocation of politic worms are even at it now." {Hamlet.') 

In this corner stone is deposited a mixed medley of now-a-days 
aff'airs, now " as familiar as household words," but in one hundred 
years will be looked upon as antiquities — a Noah's Ark of contrap- 
tions. The first and last of the City Directories ; a scedule of the 
city authorities; the military, charity and Masonic institutions; the 
fire companies, churches and ministers ; a copy of each newspaper ; 
a bank bill of each Bank ; samples of the United States coins ; 
shinplasters from 1814 to 1850 ; specimens of the old Continental 
money ; Revolutionary relics ; daguerreotypes and stereotypes ; a 
phial of the first gold dust found in California ; predictions of the 
probable population of Rochester at one hundred years from date, 
and the stability and duration of our Republican form of govern- 
ment, (fee, tS:c., totally beyond the reach of my memory. Many 
items were added to illustrate the state of the arts and trades of 
that period, and altogether will make an excitable exhibition to the 
then living humanities of this city, if well preserved. 

Being one of the committee for that duty, we had them put into 
a galvanized copper box and hermetically sealed, and if well pre- 
served, will be probably our last appearance on the records of time. 

The Cholera (3/"1832. — Great inflictions of pestilences have been 
the fate of large cities and the accumulation of human beings. — 
The great plague that decimated the inhabitants of London and the 
great capitals of Europe and the eastern world in former times. 
after along cessation, revisited the present generation of the earth 
with equal violence, passing over entire countries in the form of a 
new disease, the Cholera Asphixae. 

Its first appearance in this country was at Montreal, and it broke 
out in Rochester on the 22d June, 1832, at a house on St. Paul 
street, near the canal, and spread terror and consternation in every 
heart, and in July and August carried ofi" between 400 and 500 
persons, which was a fearful amount for the small population of 
that day. It was very fatal — without any correct diagnosis of the 
disease, but little was known of its character or treatment — many 
were supposed to be attacked and lost through alarm and fear — 
all vegetable diet was tabooed, and Brandy was the universal pana- 
cea, it is feared, to the future injury of many. 

It is a fair presumption that this terrible disease can never pre- 
vail again with anything like the same fatality as heretofore. The 
better understanding of its nature — its admitted contagion — the 
sanitary precautions — disinfection of exposed locations, and imme- 
diate medical assistance and removal, renders it but little more 
fatal than many ordinary diseases. 

It is now held by experienced physicians and physiologists, that 



29 

the whole routine of vegetable or animal food has no connection in 
the production of this disease ; unless in its injudicious use to dis- 
turb the stomach and bowels, by repletion or destitution, producing 
in those whose vital functions and the seeds of disease are in equeli- 
brio, when diarrhoea creates a preponderance in favor of the pesti- 
lence. 

During the prevalence of this unknown and fearful sickness, so 
terror-stricken was every one, that the greatest difficulty existed to 
find assistants and nurses for the sick ; and although there were 
many unselfish and humane individuals that exposed their health 
and existence, yet from my position to observe and judge, I cannot 
omit bearing testimony to the constant devotion and active benevo- 
lence to the sufiFering and aflSicted in those calamitous times by Col. 
Ashbel W. Riley, who since, for twenty-five years, has devoted his 
whole existence to the Temperance cause, both in Europe and 
America. I trust he will pardon a friend for thus making mention 
of his name and services. 

Being one of the Board of Health, such was his strong sense of 
duty to alleviate human suffering, fully imbued with his religious 
faith for sustaining him through this reign of terror and contagion, 
that he worked fearlessly through the shadows of death, and saw 
almost every case, and particularly those that were poorly situated 
in life, and often alone had to set the coffin on its side and roll 
the corpse into it without any after adjustment — nail it up, when 
the driver of the dead cart would venture to take one end and help 
carry it out. 

Those were dark and perilous times, when every countenance 
was filled with gloomy forebodings of the sudden flappings of the 
wings of the angel of death ; but our friend's faith and trust sus- 
tained him bravely through this terrible visitation, and entitled 
him to a credit that I can never forget, which I am not aware was 
ever publicly known and accredited to him. 

If good deeds are of any avail in the theology of future happi- 
ness, he is, in my humble opinion, entitled to advance some steps 
on Jacob's ladder — the first three rounds of which are said to be 
Faith, Hope and Charity. 

Number of Inhahitants. — No good reason can be assigned why 
Rochester in fifty years shall not contain 100,000 or more inhabi- 
tants. Surrounded as it is, by one of the best soils of laud in 
Western New York — with the River, Canals and Railroads passing 
through the city — its important water power — the best harbor on 
the Lake, and no possible site for an opposition town in its vicinity 
— it is b ound in time to become an important manufacturing, mill- 
ing and commercial community ; especially when the Canadas 
change masters, an event that only requires time and the success 
and stability of our government to cff"ect — a contingency that may 
result in either utter dissolution — or the ruling of the world. 

Being neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, the unsophisti- 
cated opinion of a simple individual may be indulged in a haphaz- 
ard guess or indication of fears as to the result of futurity. 



30 

There are many dangers that threaten the system of the best 
government that ever was — ever can be or ever will be. Our ex- 
tensive and constantly increasing States and Territories, embracing 
so great a variety of local interests and opinions, may prove an 
incubus to drag us into a worse state than that contemplated by 
the Southern rebellion. The reckless demagogueism of Congress 
and the mulish bullheadism of the President looks ominous. 

The negro question is bound to inflict great troubles and intes- 
tine commotions, and may result in the annihilation of the race, at 
the expense of another half million of lives — a fearful contingency, 
in which the drama may not be worth the lights. 

But the great and threatening cloud that hangs over the nation, 
portending a desolating storm, is the national debt. When we see 
that government cannot pay the interest and carry on the present 
system of expenditure without increasing their liabilities by adding 
millions yearly to the enormous amount, it almost induces one to 
think they ought to go into vohuitary hanJcruptcy — repudiate at 
once, and get rid of the wasteful expenditure — the profusion of war 
traps, rotten ships and shoulder straps — demagogues and shoddy 
politicians — blood-suckers of the body politic. We are now play- 
ing with millions as boys play with marbles. 

Few persons realize the enormous sum the nation owes. It ex- 
ceeds three dollars per head on every soul that now inhabits this 
globe — man, woman and child — all the Indies, China, Turkey, 
Europe, Africa and America — the countless hoards of Russia and 
the islands of the oceans. 

Allowing our population to be thirty millions and the debt to be- 
three thousand millions, it would amount, if taxed on the inhabi- 
tants of the United States to one hundred dollars per head on 
every soul, from the infant in the nurse's arms, to the hoary head 
of the centenarian, or five hundred dollars on every family, rich 
and poor. It never can he paid, nor ever iciU be jjaid. Mark well 
this prediction, an unjust and unpleasant subject to contemplate — 
but as such, we may as well look it in the ftice first as last. 

The Age of Invention. — That we live in a most remarkable age 
cannot be controverted ; such an age of invention and discovery 
as never existed before and never will or can occur again. There 
is not room and verge enough to increase the important devices 
of labor-saving machinery, locomotion and the exact sciences. The 
field of invention is almost exhausted, and man to advance much 
further must become a God. 

We have from the introduction of the discoveries of man become 
'' condensed Methusalahs" by enjoying all the wonderful conven- 
iences and luxuries in our short life which those who lived a thous- 
and years of life before us, knew nothing of 

There is scarcely an implement or machine, or household or 
mechanical necessity, but what are now as " familiar as household 
words ;" in fact, there is hardly anything worth knowing or using 
but what has been introduced and come into general use in my day. 



31 

Of the most important items are Canals, Railroads, Locomotive 
Engines, Magnetic Telegraph, Steam Boats and Propellers, Iron 
Ships and Iron Clads, Gas Lights, Wool carding, which was for- 
merly performed by hand cards on a woman's knee ; paper making, 
which was made on a sieve, by hand ; Nail and Pin making, all by 
powers other than taxing the organized thews and sinews of vitality; 
the Iron Plow, almost as important an invention as the magnetic 
Beedle ; Fanning Mills, Threshing Machines, Grain cutters and 
mowers, the Daguerreotype, Photograph, Stereotype, Lithograph, 
Steam Printing Press, Electro Magnetism, Calcium Light, Fric- 
tion Matches, Chloroform, Nitrous Oxide, Nitro Glycerine, were all 
born after I was. The various uses of India Rubber, Percussion 
Caps, Patent Lever Watch, cheap Yankee Clocks, cooking Stoves, 
pegged Shoes, the turning Gun stocks, Shoe Lasts and Axe handles. 
Cast Steel. Malleable cast iron and Zinc, German Silver, Galvan- 
izing, Sewing and Knitting Machines, Clothes Wringers, Kerosene 
lights and Steel Pens, et id omne cjenus in a thousand forms, of 
which my memory runneth not. 

All these are now prime articles of necessity, which the present 
generation, if deprived of, would think themselves a ruined com- 
munity. For example, so simple and unpretending an article as 
the friction match; how could we get along without it? It 
would be Milton's " darkness visible." 

Chemistry and Geology have only become fixed sciences in my 
day ; and medicine has undergone as important improvements and 
changes ; quinine and morphine have been discovered and come 
into use in the same period. 

The battle of life is now fought with steam and inert substances ; 
every art and subject that can be important to man, his interests 
and comforts, seems almost exhausted, and may even indicate and 
portend that coming time when the chief of staff of the great 
Creator — the summoning angel — shall stand with one foot on land 
and the other on the sea, and proclaim the union of Time and 
Eternity; when the globe and all that it inherits shall be resolved 
a gassious globe and dissolved into its original atomic elements in 
space ; the home of immortal spirits that God breathed into life as 
his own image, which we hope and trust he cannot, nor will suffer 
to be more than a thousand times worse than lost, but bring 
;home to everlasting happiness, every iota of that immortal part 
derived from his own form and nature, without loss or repudiation, 
to that mansion not made icith hands, eternal in the Heavens, that 
others beside sectarians most ardently believe. 

One of the noted events that took our population by storm, was 
the Navi/ Island raid ; which was one of those volcanic eruptions 
fchat moved the excitable people of this city, and even the whole 
western region. 

There had been for some time murmurs of discontent and rum- 
bling of a coming storm in the Province of Canada West, which 
was fomented and blown into a blaze during the Summer and Fall 



32 

of 1837, by the intemperate ravings of the celebrated McKenzie^ 
who controlled a Paper of the Brick Pomeroy stamp ; until it 
broke out into actual rebellion, by incendiary fires, and taking up 
arms against the authorities, which produced a friendly feeling 
among almost the entire country on this side. 

Some time during the Fall, one Van Rensselaer, a man of intem- 
perate habits, with no character, or qualifications for the situation, 
except his family name, with a few mad caps took possession of Navy 
Island in the Niagara River ; issued proclamations and was soon 
joined by a large number of our loose population. Without any 
commissariat, arms, or clothing, houses or tents, they suffered 
greatly from hunger and want of clothing ; but still men kept 
flocking to them from all quarters. 

An active committee in this city advanced large sums of money 
to procure and forward men and means, by post coaches and wag- 
ons, and organized the school districts in the country to contribute 
means to carry on the War, and so successful was the project that 
wagon loads came pouring in of all inconceivable things almost, and 
was accumulated in one wing of the River Market. Stacks of old 
muskets, almost without Lock, Stock or Barrel, rusty Cavalry and 
Militia Swords, old Boots, Shoes and Stockings, great Coats, Pants 
and Comforters, Pork, Beans and Corn, and Blankets and Coverlids 
enough to cover the whole Island, when the whole community 
was startled one Saturday night by the astounding news that the 
British had come over and cut the Caroline Steamboat adrift, set 
her on fire and sent her over the Falls with sixty souls on board. 
The whole city was aroused — the 3Iayor had repeatedly to read the 
dispatch from the Eagle Balcony — the whole militia organization 
was in conclave and on the point of ordering out the militia en masse ; 
the feelings of the populace were up to the fever point and ready to 
volunteer to annihilate the British Government and conquer 
Canada. 

Sunday intervened and Monday's news confirmed the Steamboat 
disaster, but without the loss of life, except one man on the dock 
at Schlosser, where the boat was lying. 

The excitement was kept up through the whole campaign, by 
great public meetings and " high-faluting" speeches, and by the 
tone of one of our city papers, the editor of which rode post to the 
Island and published the most inflammatory stories of their ability 
and certainty of success. 

Gun Houses were broken open here and in the country, and Can- 
non dragged off to the frontier, — the whole population apparently 
became crazy mad on the subject ; when the government interfered 
and sent Gen. Scott with troops, who cleared off the Island double 
quick, and sent the miserable concern adrift, which wound up the 
concern. 

The Canadian authorities condemned about a dozen men to trans- 
portation for life to Botany Bay. Those that were American citi- 
zens were afterward pardoned and returned. 



33 

Shortly afterward a Col. Abby, with 17 men, expecting to be 
joined by the inhabitants, made a raid from Ogdensburgh to Pres- 
cott, where he was taken prisoner and hanged. 

Bill Johnson, a noted brigand, and his daughter, a beautiful dare- 
devil woman, hung around the Thousand Islands for a time, and 
disappeared after tiring a large Steamboat ; and so ended the Navy 
Island War. 

Near forty years ago, during the great religious revival excite- 
ment, under the ministration of the Rev. Mr. Finney, the first 
Presbyterian Church, during the exercises of an evening assemblage, 
was packed from floor to dome, when one of the king post braces 
supporting the roof became detached and fell on the lathing of 
the arched ceiling and projected three or four feet through the plas- 
tering with a great crash. An uncontrollable panic seized every 
soul in the house, and an indiscriminate rush was made for the 
doors and windows — men, women and children were trodden down 
and trampled on, until the alleys were a perfect human pavement. 
No lives were lost, but many were maimed and bruised severely. 

One of the most singular features of this stampede, was the 
debris of the frightened, rushing streams of humanity. On gath- 
ering up the fragments, there was a stack as large as a cock of hay 
in a farmer's field, consisting of bonnets, vails, shawls, combs, pock- 
et-hankerchiefs, skirts of dresses, shoes and stockings, (ladies wore 
shoes in those days,) Jewelry, &c., &c. ; mens hats, watches, walk- 
ing canes, coats, and almost everything detachable but shirts and 
pants. They were gathered in a promiscuous pile, but one-half were 
never reclaimed. 

This Church Building is not now, ndr never was considered a 
permanent structure. It was overhauled and buttresses built on 
the outside to support the walls, rendering them safe up to the 
present time. 

Another Rochester notoriety deserving mention, is the institu- 
tion of a singular combination called the Fantastics, got up to 
ridicule the old militia si/stem, and which was so effectual, not only 
in this city, but run like a prairie fire over the whole State, and so 
completely knocked the entire concern into the middle of all time 
to come, that the institution ceased to exist, and in one year there 
was not an organized company of country militia, called Floodwoods, 
in the State. 

This burlesque upon the useless fooleries of Company and Regi- 
mental training, orignated in this city near thirty years ago, and 
Mr. John Robinson^ then exercising the Tonsorial art, was the 
originator of this powerful engine of ridicule, that conquered more 
than ninety thousand old muskets, mullen stalks and broom handles, 
in the hands of brave men, thoroughly disgusted with puerile and 
useless tom-foolcry. 

It originated at a company training, the originator appearing on 
parade with complete equipment, but dressed in fantastic style, 

5 



34 

with a German cap with an enormous long leather front; green 
goggles ; a very tall shirt collar ; a cut-away hunting jacket ; yellow 
short knee breeches, with large bunches of ribbons of all colors at 
the knees ; long stockings and patent leather pumps. His dress 
was of the best material, got up in good style. He conducted him- 
self with strict order, obeying every command with sobriety and 
regularity. 

His company not being a uniformed corps, he had an undoubted 
right to dress as he pleased. His unique and fanciful demonstra- 
tion, took such instant effect with the members of the company that 
the officers could do nothing with them. All order was lost, and 
they finally ordered a corporal's guard to march the innocent Mr. 
R. into a retired location, and drill him the rest of the day on 
bread and water, all of which he endured with the good nature and 
quietude of a martyr, like a good, obedient soldier as he was, which 
so angered and disgusted the company that they enacted confusion 
worse confounded, and indulged a feeling ready for any fun that 
would render the institution ridiculous. 

A few days after, a motley assemblage of several hundred 
marched through the streets in the paraphernalia of all things con- 
ceivable and inconceivable. A masquerade ball was child's play 
compared with the outre devises of the wearers. The officers had 
cocked hats large enough for a jib to a small sail boat, with corn- 
broom brush for epaulets; the Adjutant on horseback, with a 
live white goose fastened on top of his cap, flying and flapping at 
every step ; the surgeon witL laddle bags made of two sides of 
sole leather, with a complimcf^p' ^f meat saws and squirt guns ; the 
chaplain with a robe ample as i-^e mantle of charity ; in short, the 
whole affair, with many repetitions, was absolutely such a palpable 
hit and so irresistably laughable, that it was published in all the 
papers through the country, and became at once the fashion of the 
day, and so effectually used up the trumpery concern that although 
the Legislature enacted a new law as long as a Mormon Bible, with 
three or four hundred sections, it had no effect, and there has never 
since been a single Jioodwood company organized in this State. 
The revolution was effected almost as quick as one can say Jack 
Robinson. 

The old discipline of a militia training was, to dress company by 
the cart ruts in the streets ; march in serpentine straight lines, 
filling each others coat pockets with cobble stones, apple chankings 
and horse droppings ; halt ; stand at ease ; drink a pail of rum and 
go to dinner. 

The accoutrements were old muskets without lock, stock or bar- 
rels ; shot guns of all sizes and lengths ; broom sticks, mullen 
stalks and ax handles, and with crupper and belly band, they passed 
muster. What they learned in the yearly three or four days' 
fatigue, if anything, had to be unlearned before being of any use in 
service. 



35 

The only militia organization of any value to the country, must 
be simple and unoppressive to the people. We are so constantly 
changing and drifting on the waves of free principles — universal 
suffrage — womans' rights — short hours' work, and the extended priv- 
ileges of "doing as wed please," that the overbearing brief 

authority of cocked hats and tinsel epaulets, will no longer be toler- 
ated. 

If each town was designated a Military Beat, and a deposit of 
arms and equipments (of which the State has thousands) made in a 
suitable building, a man appointed to take charge of them, with a 
small salary at a County charge, with the appointment of proper 
officers to take the census of those liable to duty, and to call them 
together one day in the year without arms ; wheel into line simply 
to answer to their names, with a fixed fine for non-attendance, or 
sufficient excuse ; all of which need not consume over one hour, 
and it might not be a breach of good morality to let the time be on 
a Sabbath morning ; and when finished, march them in a body to 
Church. 

Let the government find arms and the country men. In case of 
war or civil commotion, all that is wanted is, who are liable and 
where they are to be found. The simpler the wheels of machinery 
and of governments, the more efficient and valuable. 

Fires. — The city of Rochester has been remarkably preserved 
from great and desolating fires : although as many single ones as 
any city in the Union of its size, often destroying many valuable 
structures — one half of which were i endiary, either by the owners 
or the demoralized members, or b'hoys " dat run wid de 

machine," who were delighted with a rousing fire and the plunder 
they could effect, and the treat at the erlnne house, which became 
a perfect school of demoralization, and every enormity from marbles 
to manslaughter, was concocted and perfected among that class, 
which is now happily done away with, by the introduction of 
steamers and a paid fire department, the evidence of which is shown 
by the rare recurrence of fires, and cessation of that desolating 
music of Big Tom, at the Court House. 

One cause of the decrease of fires must be attributed to the gen- 
eral use of Anthracite or hard coal, which makes no soot or blaze 
in the chimney — especially when charcoal is used for kindling — 
throws no sparks from stoves or grates, and may be trusted at all 
times, and left without fear or care by night or by day. 

What a blessing is hard coal, and yet it lay encumbering the 
earth for fifty years after it was discovered before the inhabitants 
of the Key Stone State of brotherly love found out that it would 
burn ; as did the Hydro Carbon Petroleum, which for many year.i 
troubled their salt wells, under the name of mvd oil^ which now is 
as common as monkey hats and bobtails. So we improve in pro- 
gress, until we arrive at the pitch of physical and j)olitical perfec- 
tion, that it will be just as easy to impeach a man for kissing his 
wife as for committing a homicide or the breach of the reconstruc- 



«6 

tion laws. How things do change ; the world and all its inhabitants, 
in customs, habits and principles, from puppyhood of youth to man 
in his curhood ; all have their exits and entrances. One day it is 
marbles — rolling the hoop — shinny — kite flying — ball playing and 
croquet — every dog has its day with the juveniles; while with the 
whiskered youths of a larger growth, ap])eara7ice is the god of their 
idolatry, and fashion is his prophet. High heels, loafer hats, paper 
collars and paper skulls ; coats " without never a tail," makes the 
man. The ladies, God bless them, with an old white sheet for a 
skirt and a long tailed dress with all the signs of the zodiac em- 
broidered, to clean the streets ; and clamshell bonnets, like Gen- 
eral Jackson at the battle of Orleans, they attack, defend and 
conquer behind cotton breast works and veiled escarpments. 
Well, let them all slide ; the world turns round, and night and day 
succeed each other, notwithstanding all these mutations. 

Now, what about fires ? the pen is off the track. A city with 
a River and two Canals running through its centre, could hardly 
be supposed to lack water, yet there are many points beyond the 
reach of hose, that suffer and will until the introduction of water- 
works, if such a long looked -for prophetic jubilee shall ever trans- 
pire. 

It has been mooted, what will the consequence be of the water 
passing through twenty or thirty miles of pine tubes, on account of 
the turpentine and resinous matter dissolved by the water, as pine 
barrels and churns are well known to spoil the taste of pork and 
butter. However, if such is the case, we must take it as medicine, 
as it is a valuable diuretic, and good for kidney complaints. At 
any rate, if objected as a beverage, it will no doubt extinguish fire 
if we are ever so happy as to secure its streams. 

On looking over these desultory sketches, I have some misgivings 
as to the tenacity of my memory as to some immaterial particulars, 
which the reader must charitably overlook and extenuate, as well 
as perhaps the indiscretion of publishing, which may be attributed 
to the lack of conventional perception and the idiosyncratic effects 
of age and its enervating consequences. Vale, Vale. 

Rochester, February, 1868. 



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